Practical review of modelling and simulation applications at wastewater treatment plants Ruiz, Luz Marína Pérez Pérez, Jorge Ignacio Gómez Nieto, Miguel Ángel Applications Design Modelling Authors would like to thank the company E.T. Vicenor for providing the software license used in this work. They would also like to extend their acknowledgement to those companies that allowed us to simulate their installations. This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. Mathematical models have been used since the development of the activated sludge process for wastewater treatment plant (WWTPs) performance predictions. Due to their increasing complexity, specific simulation platforms are usually required to solve the equations included in these models. Nowadays, although commercial simulators are available for designers and plant operators, their use is not highly extended in full-scale WWTPs. Literature describing new models is continuously published but there is still an important mismatch between academic research and the real knowledge and capabilities of wastewater professionals. However, it is expected that simulators, together with data-driven models play a fundamental role in the daily exploitation of WWTPs in the near future and for that reason, this work summarizes ten practical applications of simulations to improve WWTPs performance, with the purpose of bringing engineers and operators closer to the benefits of these tools. WEST commercial simulator was selected for this purpose and selected applications include aeration analysis, reagents dosification, biomass inoculation, control loops comparison or evaluation of the benefits of including selectors or a regulation tank prior to the bioreactor. Showing the results of these simulations and their help for decision making, it is expected to encourage engineers in private companies and public organizations to feel confidence in the use of these software. 2026-01-19T11:18:43Z 2026-01-19T11:18:43Z 2023-11-09 journal article Publisher version: Ruiz, L.M., Pérez, J.I., Gómez, M.A. (2023). Practical review of modelling and simulation applications at full-scale wastewater treatment plants. Journal of Water Process Engineering. 56: 104477. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jwpe.2023.104477 2214-7144 https://hdl.handle.net/10481/109879 10.1016/j.jwpe.2023.104477 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ embargoed access Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internacional Elsevier